


Vin Rebelle/Ami Fidèle

by Enamoratrix



Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But don't worry - it works out well in the end all things considered, Drabble, F/F, F/M, France - Freeform, History, M/M, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enamoratrix/pseuds/Enamoratrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re two people that fate had never intended to live happily. But the extraordinary thing about these two, with their polarities reversed in nearly every respect, is that neither of them ever put any stock in fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vin Rebelle/Ami Fidèle

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Vin Rebelle/Ami Fidèle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/723434) by [Enamoratrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enamoratrix/pseuds/Enamoratrix)



> First time posting - please be gentle! 
> 
> This is based on a dream I had (insert "I Dreamed a Dream" joke here). Basically, I just really wanted a happy ending. So just this once, everybody lives!

They’re two people that fate had never intended to live happily. The most Grantaire had to hope for—Grantaire, who saw a world of injustice incapable of change—was peace, and the most Enjolras had to hope for—Enjolras, who saw a world of injustice desperate to be changed for the better—was fulfillment. But the extraordinary thing about these two, with their polarities reversed in nearly every respect, is that neither of them ever put any stock in fate.

It really hadn’t taken the jailers long to realize they weren’t going to break Enjolras. They wanted names, collaborators, sympathizers, enablers. And they wanted places, too. They knew that l’ABC wasn’t the only center of dissent in Paris. But it took less than a week for them to see the flash of true belief in Enjolras’s eyes and know that they weren’t going to get any of that information from him. This was the only thing Grantaire found to be grateful for, at the time. Even after the massacre at the barricade, he had his sources. And his sources were telling him that they wouldn’t hurt Enjolras anymore.

He only had a few seconds to be relieved, because his sources also told him that they had an execution date set. And they were sympathizers, sure, but they didn’t understand Grantaire’s shock. ‘You knew they weren’t just going to let him go, didn’t you?’ they said. ‘Isn’t it enough that he won’t be suffering anymore?’ He could barely even hear them. ‘They need to make an example of him.’

There was a long, delirious moment when he was begging, of no one in particular, to spare Enjolras. ‘They can make an example of _me_. One is enough, right? It’s symbolic; they only need someone to string up in front of the people, to deter them from speaking up. I can turn myself in. It doesn’t have to be him.’

They put their hands on his shoulders and shook him. ‘Calm down, you’re talking crazy, have another drink.’

They thought they could get him blackout drunk and drag him home. They thought he’d been drinking – enough to blur his thoughts and sway his judgment, but not enough for a seasoned drinker like him to take bad news standing up. But the truth was, he hadn’t had a drop since they’d taken Enjolras in. He wouldn’t numb anything. He would face everything with the kind of sharp, painful clarity that he rarely forced upon himself. He was sober as the hangman himself, and that scared them more than anything else.

He staggered down the cobblestone streets until he ran into Pontmercy, who was looking rather dazed himself. When he finally registered Grantaire, standing in front of him, his eyes widened. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘I thought… I thought—’

‘What?’ Grantaire didn’t know why his voice went so low, so angry. ‘What, you thought you were the only one who made it out alive?’

Marius swallowed. Grantaire realized he had his hands on him, his fists gripping his jacket, holding him up against the wall. He didn’t let go. ‘Yes,’ Marius whispered, then shook his head. ‘I mean, no, not exactly. Éponine was hurt and I got knocked out, and someone helped us, took us to a hospital, but… everyone seemed to think that the rest of the Amis were gone.’

‘Enjolras,’ was all Grantaire could say to that. Marius’s eyebrows came together. Of course. Of course he was confused. Enjolras was the last person anyone would expect to walk away from the barricade.

‘He survived?’

‘They arrested him.’ Somehow, saying it aloud like that made it sound more final. Less like a glimmer of hope and more like a death sentence that had already been carried out.

Marius’s expression smoothed out, understanding, and he gave a small nod.

‘They’ll make an example of him,’ Grantaire said, his grip loosening.

Marius stared at him, his gaze so clear and focused that Grantaire nearly looked away. But something changed in the way Marius looked at him. There was a flicker of recognition. Something he had always failed to understand about Grantaire, now seen through the lens of someone bound to another person with a nearly fanatical sort of devotion, came into view. Some afflictions can only be recognized by those who are similarly afflicted; it was no wonder, really, that it took so long for Marius to understand Éponine. He took a deep breath.

‘I saw Cosette’s father today,’ he said, and something about his tone kept Grantaire from making a biting response. ‘He told me some things about his past—things he made me swear not to tell Cosette. But… I don’t think he’d be angry if I told you. Not when there was a chance that he could help someone else.’ And that’s how Grantaire learned the story of Jean Valjean, a man that the State had vowed to break. A man who survived.

Marius brought him to a Church. He was right; when he admitted to Valjean that he’d shared the man’s past with Grantaire, Valjean took the news in stride, and he listened carefully to Grantaire’s story.

‘The sentence could be commuted,’ Valjean mused, ‘if certain parties could be convinced.’ The only thing that stopped Grantaire from embracing him, only minutes after meeting him for the first time, was the fear that he might break the old man’s brittle bones. A flare of pride and affection, intertwined, crossed Cosette’s features. Marius just watched her, still awestruck. Grantaire envied the way Marius could reach out and touch her with his right hand, his left hand interlaced with Éponine’s. He envied the way Éponine had told Marius what she really wanted, then lived long enough to have it. And he envied the way Éponine and Cosette had met again, after all those years—opposites in so many ways, kindred in so few, and yet, kindred in the ways that mattered. But he couldn’t hate them, not quite.

He looked back at Valjean. ‘Go on,’ he said, quiet and desperate, like a prayer.

Grantaire almost couldn’t believe it worked. It only took a reasonable speech about the transitory passions of students, burning hot and flaming out—a speech that would’ve infuriated Enjolras if he’d been conscious to hear it—and a generous donation from Monsieur le Maire, and Enjolras was freed. He was leaning against Grantaire as they walked away, limping and feverish and breathing with a rattling sound in his lungs, and Grantaire contemplated the benefits and risks of murdering a string of public officials in whose custody Enjolras had spent the past nine days. Then Enjolras met his eyes, and he looked lost. The images of bloody justice dissolved from Grantaire’s mind. He half-carried Enjolras to the loft he’d managed to rent after selling off some trinkets and swearing off booze.

There’s only one bed, a lumpy thing resting on rusted springs, set against a background of gray, water-damaged wall. Grantaire sets Enjolras carefully on the bed, wraps him in blankets, and sits on the floor to watch him like a centurion. The doctor, sent by Valjean, comes calling within the hour. He treats Enjolras, pressing a glass bottle of extra medicine into Grantaire’s palm and informing him that it’s all been paid for.

Enjolras still looks like hell, blond curls plastered to his forehead with sweat, but the doctor had said this would happen. He’s sweating it out. Grantaire shouldn’t be worried.

But he doesn’t sleep at all that night.

The next morning, Enjolras finally stirs. Grantaire lets out a breath, tries to figure out what to say. Enjolras glances up at him and says, ‘How?’ His voice is ragged, abused in a way that makes Grantaire shiver.

‘I had help,’ he answers. He brings Enjolras a cup of water and tries to figure out how to say it. ‘You know, I…’ Enjolras watches him, his eyes red-ringed. ‘It’s okay to take care of yourself, sometimes.’ Grantaire stares at the now-empty cup. ‘It’s okay to have things just for yourself.’

Enjolras’s eyebrows shoot up. His eyes go round like a child’s, unfocused, as though his mind were spinning a fantoscope of memories that he only now had the context to understand. The riddle of Grantaire’s involvement with the Amis de l’ABC resolved itself easily. The answer had always been there.

‘You’ve given a lot,’ Grantaire says, aware of the pleading quality to his voice. ‘It’s okay to…let someone give to you.’

Enjolras reaches out, wraps his fingers around Grantaire’s sleeve, and tugs. Grantaire’s throat closes up. He lets Enjolras pull him up onto the bed. He feels like he’s dreaming. Enjolras wraps his arms around him, slowly, hesitantly, and when his hands meet on Grantaire’s other side, they’re close enough that Grantaire can feel his heart beating against his skin. He puts his hands in Enjolras’s hair and wonders what he ever did to deserve this.

The next few days, Enjolras continually tries to get up and continue his work, despite being about as capable as a newborn calf, unbalanced and ungainly. Grantaire tries every argument he can think of to convince Enjolras to sit back and let himself recover fully.

‘If I have to, I’ll tie you to the bedpost,’ Grantaire says. That, of all things, shuts Enjolras up. The lack of rebuttal surprises Grantaire, who glances over his shoulder at Enjolras. His eyes, black like an animal’s, have an entirely new expression in them. He doesn’t have to say anything to get Grantaire to stumble across the room and onto the bed. Grantaire’s shaking with anticipation, but he holds himself up, bracketing his arms around Enjolras’s shoulders, careful not to put too much weight on him. Enjolras moves up to meet him, more teeth than lips, and Grantaire thinks, ‘ _That’s_ the man I know.’

The next morning, he wakes up with more bruises than Enjolras. It sends a shimmer of warmth through him. Somehow, the idea of Enjolras being in more pain than him was a greater burden on his mind than anything else. Enjolras, still asleep, nuzzles into Grantaire’s chest. He tucks that away for future use. Possibly as blackmail material.

It isn’t just that Enjolras is a distraction from the darkness of the rest of the universe. It’s more than that, now that Grantaire can spend even more time with him, now that they’re closer than they were before. Now it’s as if Grantaire can no longer believe the universe is as dark as he once thought—not if it produced Enjolras.

To call him an atheist, now, would be slightly inaccurate. He defies any zealot to match his reverence.

Enjolras does what he always does – he spreads ideas. Grantaire sits at the corner tables of cafés, meets long-time rabble-rousers, and learns how to do this without drawing attention. After that, he trails after Enjolras, covering his tracks.

They’re among the first to hear of it when the royalists remove the image of _la Liberté guidant le peuple_ from the museum of the Palais du Luxembourg. ‘He’s cut the last thread between France and the spirit of revolution,’ Enjolras says, ‘the love of progress that brought him the throne in the first place. And people greet him with _cheers_ in the streets.’ Enjolras can’t seem to unclench his fists. It’s like his muscles are all coiled, like he’s lost control of them. It scares Grantaire, but he doesn’t say that. They stay in bed that day, drifting in and out of sleep, and Grantaire tries to see what kind of touch will get Enjolras to relax. That night, Enjolras flinches in his sleep every time Grantaire happens to touch him. Grantaire stays awake, just in case.

A month later, they’re sitting on the floor, twin cups of coffee and a paltry array of half-rotted fruits and bits of bread between them. Grantaire tells Enjolras that he reminds him of Prometheus: the cycles of torture and reprieve, the flame of mankind dancing in his eyes, the gall to tell the gods that they’d never bend his will. Enjolras stares at him for a moment before laughing hysterically. He says, ‘You’re drunk,’ and laughs, and laughs. It isn’t true; Grantaire doesn’t drink anymore. It was a promise he made to the universe in exchange for Enjolras’s life. It didn’t matter that he never believed that there was anything in the universe to hear or to hold him to that promise. He kept it because he got what he never thought he could have.

And even though it isn’t true, Grantaire laughs too, knowing that Enjolras only laughs when someone says something that strikes a nerve. Something true enough to hurt, to call to mind memories that are better left undisturbed.

Grantaire feels a twinge of guilt, then, so he says, ‘Of course, of the two of us, you aren’t the one who needs to be worried about his liver.’

Enjolras gives him a long, hard look, one that Grantaire has learned to associate with a protectiveness that Enjolras would never admit to having. Then Enjolras says, ‘Are you Hercule in this scenario?’ And Grantaire grabs him by the wrist and takes him to the bedroom.

That night, Grantaire walks out onto the little balcony, and there he is—standing silhouetted against the starless blue-black of the night sky, shaking so slightly that only someone intimately acquainted with the lines of his body would be capable of noticing that he moves at all.

‘Enjy,’ he says softly. He gets no response. He wonders, absently, if Enjolras had always sleepwalked, or if this is new, after the barricade, after prison. He wonders if Enjolras ever had anyone to tell him he does it, or to tell him that he talks in his sleep, gently, sounding nothing like himself. Grantaire gets that feeling, like there’s no more room in his lungs to breathe, no more room in his chest for his heart to beat. It’s a familiar sensation.

He walks up to him, slowly so he doesn’t spook him, and places a kiss on Enjolras’s bare shoulder. The shaking stops.

And they'll live to see the Paris Commune, Enjolras a fiery 65-year-old who looks like he’s in his late 40s, shivering in the cold and praising the Parisian working class. When the _Semaine Sanglante_ comes, Grantaire will drag him kicking and screaming from the rue Ramponeau in Belleville where they’ve been staying, and when they’re safe, Grantaire will say that Enjolras still has more to give the people, so much more that it’s worth saving his life against his will, and Enjolras will look at him and find, to his surprise, that Grantaire still believes it. Four years later, Enjolras will rail against the colonialist expansion, and Grantaire will pretend that he doesn’t notice Enjolras give a small smile of approval when the _Assemblée nationale_ passes the Constitutional Laws. Éponine and Marius and Cosette, when they visit, will joke that they can’t believe Grantaire has lived as long as he has, after all the strain he put on his liver in his twenties. This will make Grantaire laugh, and Enjolras scowl. They won’t live to see the adoption of the Fourth Republic, but they’ll see it, nonetheless.


End file.
